


MARTYRDOM COMPLEX

by leporicide



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Denial, Depression, Drug Use, Graphic Canonical Violence, M/M, Religious Themes, Violence, mention of parental abuse, unhealthy relationship dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-13 05:23:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13563774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leporicide/pseuds/leporicide
Summary: Shiro returns to the states in order to finish his PhD and stumbles into a living hell with love sickness in his eyes.Or; Shiro falls in love with Keith, who firmly believes in taking justice in his own monstrous hands.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Unfortunately, I was not able to complete this commission in a timely manner so it's currently unfinished, but thankfully, despite my reluctance to write more fic, I can't depart from it. Expect the second part in the future. 
> 
> This is incredibly self-indulgent and contains from problematic relationship dynamics. Be wary.
> 
> I'm pumping out a bunch of original content with some amazing artists this year check out my twitter @bogboogie so see some new cool things. Such as A Vampire in Paris, a collaborative book about a young girl determined to prove her coworker, Selma, is a vampire. In the silliest ways possible.

Takashi Shirogane believes in Hell.

Not the comical one from cartoons, with the devil draped in red and dancing around a room filled with flames. Hell is more intimate and personal and  _ visceral _ . There’s a special one, for every special person, and it’s cherry-picked to cater to one and one alone. Dostoyevsky once said that hell is the suffering of being unable to love, except he’s wrong because Shiro is in hell, his own very special hell, and Shiro knows it’s because he loves entirely too much.

He loves through the gurgling sounds emitting from the outside of his car, loves through the grit of Keith’s teeth, loves through the crack of metal. 

And if this is his hell, then Shiro loves it too.

***

Matt Holt is waiting for him when he lands, a poster with his name hastily written on it waving about. Shiro grins when he sees him, pulling his luggage behind as he rushes up to the other male, openly accepting the hug that follows.

“Welcome back to the State's, buddy,” Matt laughs into his chest. He feels cold, having just come from the frosty air of New York City. When he pulls away, Shiro notes the redness of his nose. “It’s been what? Eight years?”

“Just two actually,” Shiro replies, taking the sign from Matt’s hands and teasingly sticking it onto his luggage. 

“Two years too many. You’ve been missed.”

“By you?”

“Not just me,” Matt guides him outside to the parking garage, weaving through a clutter of people until eventually arriving before a 2005 silver Toyota. “Pidge too.”

Popping the trunk open to put away the luggage, Shiro peaks his head around the side. “She’s in college now, right?”

“Yeah, a sophomore this year.”

Once everything is packed, Shiro joins him in the car and buckles up. It takes a couple clicks but the Toyota eventually springs to life. “Some things never change.”

“This baby got us through the golden era.”

“Golden era?”

“High school.”

Shiro rolls his eyes, because there was no  _ golden era _ but a couple of teenage boys navigating puberty and a weird amount of crying under the bleachers of their basketball court. 

“Come on,” Matt teases, bumping shoulders with him as they enter the highway. They drive in relative silence, Matt occasionally pointing out new buildings and places to eat since Shiro’s been gone. He doesn’t bother memorizing any of it as everything begins to blur together. The highways all merge, and the building seem to tilt with the wind. Shiro can only focus on the memory of why he left, the look on his father’s face, the night everything fell apart. 

“Have you called him?” Matt’s voice cuts in like the chilled breeze, snapping at Shiro’s attention. He pulls himself away from the daydream to face the driver, eyebrows raised. “You haven’t changed. I can read you like an open book. You’re thinking of your dad, right?”

Shiro is shamefully stunned into silence. 

“You should call him. Tell him you’re back.”

“Thanks,” Shiro smiles as Matt crinkles his nose, his frames nearly dropping off his face. “For looking out for me. I mean it. Pidge is lucky to have a brother like you.”

“Jealous? Wishing you weren’t an only child?”

“Every damn day.”

Matt laughs and just like that, the topic of Shiro’s father is dropped, just like endlessly pointless things are dropped. Just like feelings or words are dropped into a bottomless well with loose wishes and missing pennies. Sometimes, if one waits for it, the sound of it landing can be heard echoing from its walls. Shiro holds his breath as if to listen in the silence that spreads between them now.

They exit the highway with only a couple shrieks from Matt and excessive honking, slowing to a stop in a familiar apartment complex. Finding parking is easy enough and soon, the two are lugging up the few items Shiro brought with him.

“The crowd is totally different now,” Matt says as they wait in the elevator, watching the numbers slowly but surely climb up. “A lot of our friends have moved away. I’m basically the only person here. I mean, except for you now.”

“Is that code for ‘ _ please hang out with me Shiro’ _ ?” he teases.

Matt turns beet-red, growing fascinated with the intricate designs around the control panel. It looks like wood carvings of small animals. The building is old, and the restoration committee likes to keep the  _ dated _ look of the complex fresh. Shiro can’t make out the animals from his distance and is half-ready to ask Matt since he’s so damn enamored by them.

“No.” Matt doesn’t sound too convincing. “That’s code for  _ don’t get too lonely _ . When an opportunity strikes to go out and meet people, don’t pass it up.”

“I wasn’t a hermit in Japan, you know.”

“Really?” 

Shiro feels nervous under the intensity of Matt’s stare, even as the doors open with a  _ ding _ and the two of them are rolling suitcases down the hall.

“Maybe a little.”

“Shiro,” Matt all but whines, waiting for him to unlock the door and push his way inside. The apartment is rather small, no AC and barely any furniture. Matt wolf-whistles, dropping Shiro’s baggage unceremoniously onto the floor. “This looks homey.”

“Perfect,” Shiro jokes, dropping the rest of his stuff beside the growing pile. “I think the water is running, so a shower is in order to get rid of the flight smell.”

“I like the smell,” Matt is roaming around, peeking into the bedroom and grimacing. “Do you even get hot water here? The building looks old as shit.”

“For a future astronaut, you’re sounding awfully stupid.” 

“Oh, so now you’re funny, huh? Two years away did you some good.”

Shiro looks around the mostly empty place, eyes landing on the wooden cross tacked on the wall by the door. Probably an item left behind by the previous family. It must have been too much hassle to remove so it’s now become part of Shiro’s home. He doesn’t find himself minding it much.

“It really did.”

***

Matt was half right.

The hot water is there at the start of his shower, but turns to freezing near the end of it. Shiro struggles to turn off the spray, giving the handle a couple jiggles before it agrees to cooperate. His friend had left, blaming his night shift at work and promising his sister would be around to help him unpack. Shiro didn’t have the heart to say no, though he’d rather have the precious moments of solitude. 

He hasn’t seen Pidge since he left for Japan. Shiro doesn’t really know how to face her. 

Wrapping a towel around his waist, he makes his way to the pile of luggage that has found refuge in the middle of his living room and hunts for the suitcase filled with his clothes. He finishes getting pants on by the time there’s a faint knock at his door. 

“It’s unlocked,” he calls, nearly tripping through the pant leg as he slips it on and the door opens. His eyes meet unimpressed ones as Pidge makes her way into his place.

She’s taller now, that’s the first thing Shiro notices. Her shoulders are square and her hair is shorter than he remembers. She closes the door behind her, gentler than how she opened it and stares at him, unwavering as he rights himself.

“You’ve uh, gotten taller.”

Pidge nods, as if she expected he would say that before a smile splits her stoic face in two and soon, he’s in the second embrace of the day. 

“I’ve missed you,” she whispers, a startling copy of her brother that has Shiro wrapping his arms around her. They stand like that, fully aware of each other for a moment before she backs away, letting go of him. Her smile remains. “And taller? Really? That’s your opening?”

“I was pressed for time.”

Pidge rolls her eyes, heading straight for a suitcase and pulling out its contents with practiced ease and soon they reach a rhythm of inside jokes and memories shared. It’s almost as if Shiro never left, as if he’s been here—

“How are you, by the way. Since the whole, you know?” 

The question is just as jarring as Matt’s but Shiro barrels through it, because he’s been training for what feels like his whole life. “I’ve been well.”

Pidge’s eyes call him a liar, but her mouth says, “I’m glad.” And that’s the end of it, clinical and clean cut, amputated like a professional. She grasps for the next conversation like a starved man in a desert. “So, there’s a small party at my friend’s campus house, a couple blocks from here actually.”

Shiro nods, half listening as he organizes his books, by color and never by author. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Pidge stops her folding of his shirts and faces him. “Wanna come?”

“To a college party?”

He can feel Pidge frowning without even looking at her. It’s sweet, if a little childish. “Don’t say it like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re  _ old _ . It’ll do you some good.”

Shiro finally turns away from the shelf, satisfied with his work. “Did Matt put you up to this?”

“Maybe,” she mumbles but the look in her eyes is determined. “But I want to.”

There’s a small part of Shiro that doesn’t want to give in, that feels anxious at the thought of having to assimilate into western society once more. But Pidge looks vulnerable in this moment, asking something she would only reserve for a select few and to spit in her face is a grievance Shiro wouldn’t dream of committing. 

“Is it going to be late?”

“You sound  _ fifty _ . Need me to get your cane?”

Shiro laughs, not bothering to respond. They finish up soon after, Pidge promising to come pick him up for the party tomorrow. He shows her out and when the door finally clicks, Shiro collapses. 

***

In his dreams, Shiro sees his mother.

She’s sitting on the porch, a drink in her hand and a smoke on her lips. His father is beside her, laughing at something she has said. His hands are empty. They are always talking about something Shiro can’t hear, soft murmurs punctuated by laughter.

In the dream, he grows fed up of watching from inside the house and pushes the front door open. The conversation is abruptly silenced, and his father turns to face him. He looks older, tired and aged against the harsh waves of decades washing over him. His mother doesn’t turn, continues her rocking on the chair. 

“Shiro,” his father calls, tears welling up in his eyes. His mother refuses to turn to him and Shiro grows hot with humiliation and anger. 

He shouts at her, demands her attention but his father is drowning him out with sobs and apologizes, except Shiro doesn’t care. His mother won’t look at him,  _ why won’t she look at him _ , and the bottle in her hand shatters on the wooden porch. 

He’s screaming, Shiro realizes, at one point. And his father is getting louder now, cries raking his whole body with a shudder until Shiro wakes up.

There’s sweat on his brow, in fact, it’s everywhere. His heart is racing and soon, his fingers wrap around the small silver cross around his neck. He whispers a prayer, something small his mother taught him until his breathing finally steadies. His windows are bare from any curtains and yet no lights peek through them. 

When he finally feels steady, his hand falls to his side. The hammering in his heart still echoes against the cavity in his chest but he’s taking in full breaths now and that’s progress, it has to be, 

Shiro sits up, checking the clock for that obscure AM time before looking down blurrily at his hands. He hasn’t dreamt so clearly in a year and is clearly out of practice dealing with it. 

“Fuck,” he whispers to no one and no one answers him. It takes him a while, but he eventually pushes himself to the bathroom and washes his face, staring at his tired reflection at the end of it, as water runs down the bridge of his nose and slowly drops from the tip. The mirror paints a horror story for him, a confused child running around like a man, a false prophet. He feels sick to his stomach, thinks it's due to the hypoxia from his hyperactive breathing before he hurls into the sink. Nothing really comes up, he didn’t eat dinner, but the bile does the trick, burning his throat. 

He coughs, violently before turning the sink on and sticking his mouth under it. It’s a bastardization of a baptism and it does nothing for the wretched taste in his mouth. But Shiro has been good at pretending everything is alright.

He takes another shower, six hours apart from his last one, but this time, when the water freezes into ice, he stands until he’s numb.

***

Shiro’s dressed long before Pidge shows up at his doorstep. 

He’s not  _ excited _ per say, but after the night he’s had, he’s ready for a change of scenery. The TV hasn’t been set up yet and Shiro was feeling rather lazy so by the time Pidge bursts in through his unlocked door, she finds him sitting on the couch staring at nothing with McDonald’s french fries in his mouth.

“You look the part of a college kid.”

Shiro narrows his eyes in faux anger before getting up, being purposeful to ignore the crumbs that fall to the ground and scatter around him. “I’m completely put together.”

“Sure,” she says, grinning as he slips on his shoes. She’s wearing a sweater and jeans, almost too casual. Shiro is suddenly aware that maybe he’s overdressed, that the button up collar was a little too much. He has no time to change though, with Pidge hurriedly closing the door behind them and pushing him towards to elevator. “You look great, don’t sweat it.” And Shiro is starting to think the Holts can read minds.

The walk to the campus housing is brisk but brutal as the cold tail end of Autumn sets in. Their breath comes out in fog, and Pidge keeps her hands tucked into her sweater. Shiro feels bad enough to offer his gloves, because he checks the weather on his phone like it means something. Pidge shakes her head, but takes them nonetheless. 

They get to the place, black chained fence around it, with a lawn littered in solo cups and tin cans. It  _ looks  _ like a college house, with as much misplaced young adult aggression as there were single shoes at the doorway. 

Pidge seems to know  _ everyone _ .

     ople, but she does a lot of greeting and wave-replying that Shiro feels the awkwardness creep up his spine. He stands out, not from height or build, but from this ugly collared shirt he wears. He loosens the top of it, ignoring Pidge’s cackling beside him and practices breathing through his nose. 

Shiro follows Pidge’s lead, says hi when he’s introduced and nods when he somehow wormed himself into a small circle of conversation. Inevitably, Pidge leaves his side, something about beating Lance ( _ who? _ ) at ping pong, and hands him a beer as a parting gift. He graciously accepts and finds a corner of the wall to call his temporary home. 

People are in and out of the house, and not a single face is familiar. Matt was right, there really was none of their old college crew around. Something about that makes him ache, a loneliness he felt throughout his time abroad. It’s startling how long it took to creep up on him here, so Shiro sips his beer for courage and looks around.

His eyes land on another wallflower, a young man with a raggedy leather jacket, a size or two too big, resting on his shoulders. His hand is fiddling with his phone, looking unamused and rather bored. Shiro had seen Pidge talk to him earlier, one from her inner circle or something, she had said. It’s hard for him to imagine them hanging out, if only for Pidge’s annoyance with false personas. The guy looks draped in falsehoods, from the duct tape at the soles of his boots to the unkempt mess of long hair. 

Despite everything, he is  _ attractive _ , and Shiro is a mortal man.

Shiro finishes his beer, manages to throw it out and grab a new one, and the man continues to stand there, in his secluded spot of the wall. That’s divine calling enough for Shiro to suck in a breath and make his way over. He’s only halfway across the room before the man looks up to watch him approach, as if sensing him long before Shiro was even aware the other was in the room. 

When they’re finally close enough to speak, Shiro opens his mouth to say something charming, or he hopes sounds charming, but is interrupted by the other. “You look like Noah.”

“What?” Shiro blinks, because  _ no _ he’s Shiro.

“Noah, you know? Noah’s ark.” The stranger points to his chest and Shiro realizes his cross is peaking out from his open collar. Embarrassed but buzzed enough to shove that emotion deep down, he smiles. 

“Oh, the prophet. I, uh, look like him.”

“Yeah,” the stranger smiles and it’s blindingly dangerous. Shiro is already attempting to memorize his face, fear of never getting another chance to talk to him. “Lost at sea.”

Shiro doesn’t have the heart to correct him that Noah wasn’t  _ lost _ , that there was a bunch of divine intervention in that story and there was no  _ land _ so you can’t really be lost at sea if there was nowhere left to  _ go _ . 

Instead, he smiles. “Yeah? Throw me a life jacket, will you?”

***

His name is Keith Kogane and he’s a senior at Pidge’s college.

He’s got a crooked set of teeth that is absolutely devilish when he smiles and a collection of 90s cartoon lunchboxes he used to collect with his father when he was younger. He’s been really interested in Russian literature ever since he took the class as an easy A with the infamous ping pong champion Lance. He never half-asses anything and struggles with finding time to visit his dad on the other side of town between his classes and his work.

Shiro is enamored.

The two of them, having ditched the college house to sit at the local park and talk, instantly click. Shiro finds out Iverson still teaches physics and gave Keith just as much as a hard time as he got when he was in school. Keith isn’t much of a talker and yet, the space between them is filled with endless stories of similar experiences, messy friendships and a weird enjoyment of solitude, even from the noise in their own head. Shiro likes that Keith rarely asks about his life, choosing to open the conversation broadly enough for Shiro to pick and choose what to bring up. 

Eventually, it ends with a number exchange. Shiro’s phone is new, only has three contacts on it, and two of them are the Holt siblings so when Keith types in his name with a shy smile, Shiro thinks he’s done his job and never needs to collect another number again.

“I’m shit at texting so call me?” Keith asks when the sun is gone and it grew too cold for them to justify hanging out any later. 

Shiro nods as Keith ears turn red. “Okay, see you?”

“For sure.”

And Keith is gone, lost in the tumultuous crowd of people coming home from work, spilling into the streets and sidewalks like clockwork. Shiro waits a few more minutes where he stood, staring at his contacts list and smiling to himself. Maybe Matt was right, that putting himself out there really matters in the long run. 

By the time Shiro gets home, undresses and pulls apart the sheets on his bed, he’s accepted that maybe he should finally give his father a call.

***

 “Happy Birthday!” His father sings, placing the cake in front of him. 

Shiro is turning ten, a big time in his life because he’s finally the double digits, which means he’s practically an adult. The cake is a bright catastrophe of colors, his father having struggled with the icing in the kitchen but Shiro adores it all the same. 

His mother sits across from him, her face resting on the table as her hair spills like an overflowing glass on the table around her. It’s familiar but for some desolate reason, it sparks a rage in Shiro he’s felt only a handful of times. It makes the singing of his father fall into murky waves of sound that drift in and out of his focus. He wants her to look up at him.

“Mom,” he calls and his father continues to sing, but it’s louder this time. So he calls again and again, and again and again, until he’s wailing to the pauses of Happy Birthday. She doesn’t look up even when Shiro, in childish anger, rocks his chair too hard that he topples over, cracking his head against the table as he falls to the ground.

***

“You okay?” Keith’s question is innocent enough.

They’re marathoning  _ Harry Potter _ in his apartment, their third marathon this week, once Keith convinced him to finally set up the damn TV. Shiro doesn’t know how to respond as Ron jumps onto the screen and says something whiny. 

“Yeah, what do you mean?”

“You look tired, is all. Not getting enough sleep?”

“No,” Shiro murmurs, enjoying how hot Keith’s body temperature runs. He’s not wearing that ugly jacket this time around and his arms are bare enough to radiate heat. “I’m not big on sleeping.” 

“Me neither. Work doesn’t let me.”

“What do you do?” Shiro asks because Keith’s work, something he rarely brings up on his own, always alludes him. And it looks like it will once again, by the way Keith’s eyes shift away from him.

“This and that, I’m like a handyman.”

Shiro raises an eyebrow. “At night?”

Keith looks at him, face remaining completely neutral. “I’m Batman.”

A beat of silence before Shiro loses it, and maybe it’s the sleep deprivation, maybe it’s the struggle he’s been having to get accepted into the offered PhD program, maybe he’s the fact that Keith has been a bright spot in a dark sky since his return. 

Maybe it’s the fact that he has four missed calls.

“You sound stupid.”

“No,” Keith says, smiling and leaning further into the couch. “I sound cool as shit.”

_ Harry Potter _ is still on screen, the cast is running around for something or another when Keith kisses him. It misses his mouth, cutely brushing the corner of his lips before Keith is pushing away, a blush violently spreading through his cheeks. 

“Try it again,” Shiro whispers, because the moment seems too fragile, as if the act of breaking bread would bury it. 

“Okay.” And he does, but this time, Shiro moves to meet him halfway.

Keith’s lips are chapped from the cold, but his mouth is warm. Shiro hasn’t kissed another person intimately since he left for Japan two years ago, but it’s muscle memory. He reaches his hand up to cusp Keith’s cheek before pressing a thumb to his jaw. There’s a confession that needs to be made somewhere before this started, Shiro thinks. Some sort of admittance of feelings, but Shiro hasn’t been sure of any feeling he’s had in years and Keith seems to the type to do it now and wonder about it later.

A ring of a cellphone has them pulling apart like hormonal teenagers, nervous their parents will walk in.

Keith reaches into the back pocket of his jeans and pulls out the object of offense, clicking it on and scrolling through it. Shiro thought Keith wasn’t one for texting but his eyes are focused on the screen now, eyebrows furrowed. 

“I have to go,” he announces to the darkness of Shiro’s apartment. Shiro is dumbfounded, watching him get up and quickly picking up his stuff. 

“Oh, okay? Everything alright?” 

Keith nods but he’s already slipping on his shoes before Shiro even gets up off the couch. “I’ll call you later. Gotta get to work.”

“Sure,” Shiro nods and somehow feels similar to the TV dramas Matt used to watch, some desperate lover watching the breadwinner leave into the arms of another. Except the another is a job and Shiro is pretty sure he makes more money at his programming job than Keith makes doing what the  _ fuck _ ever he does.

Keith’s eyes light up, shooting Shiro a quick smile before he’s off into the crisp night. He left the door open behind him, inviting the chilling air into Shiro’s place but he doesn’t have the heart to get up and close it. He doesn’t seem to have the heart to do much when Keith isn’t around.

***

“You should hang out with Keith less,” Matt says around the straw of his milkshake. Shiro inhales sharply and coughs on his own. Matt doesn’t move from his spot to help him as he chokes, just chews at his straw patiently until he stops. “I’m serious.”

“Where is this coming from?” Shiro asks, incredulously. He wipes the spit from around his mouth with a napkin the other hands him evenly. “How do you even know him—”

“You haven’t called your old man once since you’ve been back, have you?”

Matt’s tone is accusatory and puts Shiro immediately on the defensive because it’s honestly none of his business really. He’s ready to bite except knows better, that Matt isn’t intentionally trying to be malice. That his pestering comes from a calmer place. Shiro’s necklace feels heavy around his neck with shame. “No, I haven’t.”

“Keith is the last person you want to use as a distraction. You’re going to end up fucking each other over.”

Shiro can’t imagine a world where he’s doing much of the fucking around in Keith’s life. The other seems to be set in his goals, majoring in Astronomy and Physics, working steadily, surrounded by great friends. Perfect, it’s a perfect life and the only thing missing is a girlfriend and a functional alcoholic liver.

“I’m not stupid,” he laughs, awkwardly shrugging the other off. “I’ll call him tonight.”

That soothes the hard lines on Matt’s face into his usual default happy-go-lucky attitude. “Good. Tell him I said hi.”

“Sure, sure,” Shiro says.

That night, he really attempts to keep his promise. Opens up the phone, scrolls through the now whopping sixteen numbers until he lands on  _ Dad _ . It’s ominous, just the title of his familiar standing and Shiro has half a mind to wipe the number off his phone all together.

Not that it would matter, as he’s memorized it long before.

There’s a picture attached to the number, a young-looking version of his father grinning back at him. When Shiro looks in the mirror, he sometimes sees that staring back at him. If God has created Man in His image than Shiro is merely the reflection of his father. The thought makes him feel vile.

He hits dial without any further preamble.

The phone rings once, twice, before he’s alerted that there’s another call being made to him. Keith’s name flashes across the screen, nearly as ominous as his father’s and startles Shiro enough to drop the phone. He hears the sickening crack and sighs, picking it up and staring at the shattered screen.

“Of fucking course,” he mutters to himself, flicking the screen to end the ringing to  _ Dad _ and to answer  _ Keith _ .

“Hello,” he tries to sound normal, like he isn’t close to an anxiety attack and that he’s as put together as Keith seems to think.

“Hey, Shiro. Hope I’m not bothering, but I have an important job today and could really use a ride.”

_ What _ .

“What?” Shiro asks.

“A ride. Matt said you picked up your old car recently and I could really use a ride.”

Shiro wants to ask why he didn’t call Pidge, or Lance, or even fucking Iverson, because Shiro is clearly busy with his impending fight with God after he’s passed away from a heart attack.

“Alright, where are you?” is what he ends up saying, shrugging on his coat and picking up the keys hanging at the doorway.

***

Keith is waiting for him at the end of his block. The snow has started to fall and New York has become the temporary wonderland he remembers from his childhood. Keith’s dressed for it, heavy scarf around his collar and a loose beanie that presses the long hair against the back of his neck for extra warmth. He looks holy in the night, the lamppost sparking a makeshift halo around his head, as if Keith was an unmovable object, and immortal creature that Shiro thinks is just as blasphemous as it is perfection.

He thinks Keith’s in his dreams too often enough to count.

He rolls up to him, watching as Keith holds his backpack with a single strap and makes his way inside. 

“Hey,” he greets, breath coming out in puffs once he’s been seated. He rubs his hands together to warm them and gives Shiro a little taste of that supposed divinity with a small smile. Keith’s nose is bright red and there’s mild snot beginning to drip down. Shiro hands him one of the napkins he’s stuck into the side pockets of his door. “Thanks.”

Keith’s backpack clanks on the ground and Shiro notices the obnoxiously red metal bat that sits in it, hanging out of the top. There’s loose wrapping around for grip and it looks worse for wear. He doesn’t ask about it though because he’s thinking after he drops Keith off, maybe he can call his father for real, that there’s been literal years to get over it.

Keith is wrapping his fingers in a very similar method to the bat, messily and haphazardly. He directs Shiro where to go without looking up as he works his hands. When he finishes, he obtains two leather gloves from the bag and with a methodical slowness, pulls him over his bandaged fingers, precise and sharp. For some strange reason, it reminds Shiro of how his mother used to quilt, quick fluid movements that painted a bigger picture that Shiro could never see.

Because his mother never finished, and Keith never—

“Right here,” Keith points, forcing Shiro to stop at a near desolate road, a rarity in the city.

There’s no one around, except for a well-dressed man, smoking at the corner by lamppost, which flickers in and out, thanks to taxpayers. 

“Are you sure—?”

“Wait for me here. Keep the car running, okay?” Shiro thinks that this is all beginning to sound like a film starring some white nonsense actor, but Keith looks serious, opening Shiro’s car door and pulling out the bat from its confines. “Turn your headlights off.” 

Shiro does as he’s told, watching with slowly dread that buds in his chest. Keith pulls his scarf around his mouth, pushes the beanie lower and tighter and walks, away from Shiro and towards the Stranger.

Shiro now capitalizes him because it the was the first in a long list of rude and cruel awakenings, as if Revelations wasn’t speaking about the horsemen but rather facets of Keith that Shiro never knew.

Except now he  _ knows. _

The first crack of the bat in the cold Autumn night against a skull is a part of a growing list of things Shiro will never allow himself to forget.

He watches, fingers wrapping around the cool steering wheel, through the rearview mirror as Keith gets the man on his knees, and brings the bat down again and again. 

It’s messy, the man seems to be pleading something but Keith is relentless and Shiro can’t look away because if there was a more physical sign of the devil’s existence, it stands before him. Blood splatters the lamppost, stains the soft snow around them and colors the bat a darker shade.

He listens until there isn’t much to listen to, no more  _ squelching _ of flesh, no hollow echoes of bones, no gurgling and it’s only when Keith is walking back does Shiro realize he’s been praying under his breath.

_ “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by thy Name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven— _ ”

Keith opens the car door, blinking at Shiro as Shiro returns the favor, lips moving wordlessly. “Are you sure that’s the right prayer?” Keith asks and the world stutters to a savage halt. And there’s nothing separating them but the stick shift and a barrier of their visible breaths. Keith gets into the car.

There’s not a speck of blood on him, and he opens his backpack to pull out a plastic bag, wrapping the bat in it. 

“What are you doing?” Shiro asks when he can finally find his voice. 

“Blood stains, you know. It’s a nice car, didn’t want you to deal with the trouble of cleaning it later.”

“Oh,” Shiro says like it makes perfect sense, like Keith didn’t just brutalize another human being before his eyes. The passing lights continue to make small halos over said batter’s head as he drives them down the familiar path of Keith’s home.

Shiro pulls him right in front of his place, something Keith looks eternally grateful for, leaning over to the driver’s seat as if expecting something. Shiro doesn’t know what compels him in that moment, but he leans the rest of the way and gives him a small kiss, enjoying the smile that graces Keith’s lips. He watches the backpack leave his car on thin shoulders, vanishing through a doorway of a small townhouse. 

Shiro doesn’t open his mouth,  _ doesn’t even think _ , until he’s parked, safely away from others and has somehow managed to strongarm his way into his apartment. His phone is ringing, non-stop like the wild cries of the Stranger, who actually no longer cries at all, in fact, the only one crying is Shiro he thinks, because that’s what he’s doing now. He’s sobbing and staring at the cracked phone screen with _ Dad _ scrawled on it.

“What the  _ fuck. _ ”


	2. The God and The Devil Are Raging Inside Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Shit,” he groans, ripping the sheets off his sweating body and standing up. The floor is cool despite how hot the room runs. Shiro makes his way back to the bathroom and stares at the now dead phone, sunk into the bottom of his toilet.
> 
> “Am I a fucking idiot?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, it's me, ya boy bogboogie. forgive me father for i have sinned. 
> 
> this is for all the reviews i got, despite thinking i'd never touch sheith again. 
> 
> please please read the tag warnings

Takashi Shirogane believes in Hell.

He’s in it, listening to the static of the television drone on from the bathroom of his small studio apartment. The water is running too, in the sink he grips tightly and the tears in his eyes have long since dried salt stains on his cheeks. And under all that, the quiet vibration of his phone, clicking against the top of the toilet where he left it.

 _Dad_. It says. _Dad_ and _Dad_.

Without thinking, Shiro reaches out and pushes it into the toilet, watches it settle at the bottom. He takes a shower right after, washes his face and goes to bed.

Except he can’t sleep.

He thinks about the wooden cross hanging in his apartment, from a family forgotten by the walls. He thinks about the sound of metal against bone and the way the crack hits a pitch just high enough to be a choir note. He thinks about God, and Keith, and maybe the Devil, who’s just another facet of God.

 _And Keith_.

The world continues to buzz outside, moving forward despite his own crumbling reality. Is this the truth of the world that caused his mother to fester in herself, rot at her core until what was left was the shallow representation of her shadow? Despite his father’s appearance, was Shiro destined for her fate?

“Fuck,” he whispers, like a prayer. The room remains still, as if it hadn’t heard the end of his mental breakdown. “ _What the fuck am I going to do?_ ”

Shiro supposes, as he turns in bed, he should call someone. The police, maybe. But he drove Keith there and back, fuck, he _watched_ him through the rearview mirror brain the Stranger. He’s an accomplice. Matt? Matt’s better off not knowing, he’s helping out his dad and Pidge, he doesn’t need any stress.

 _His father_.

His father would do nothing.

And maybe that’s the best advice Shiro can indulge right now.

***

His mother lays by the windowsill.

She drapes her body in interesting folds, her long black hair falling like silk against the wood paneling. She looks like a ghost, a phantom even in Shiro’s memories.

“Mom,” Shiro calls out, ball in hand. He smells like fresh cut grass and his father’s cologne. He doesn’t receive an answer, so he wobbles his way to her, on shaky knees with purple bruises. He had fallen outside playing catch. Shiro wanted her to kiss them better. “Mom,” he calls again.

This time, she turns. Her eyes widen, as if seeing Shiro for the first time before she smiles, bending down to scoop up her son and rest him in her lap on the windowsill. Sunlight floods his vision and he feels warm.

“Shiro, my baby,” she coos, digging her nose into his shoulder. She’s beautiful, Shiro knows that at even this age, and she’s _his_ , his mother alone. He forgets all about his bruised knees and scrapes.

They just sit together, silently, until the sun eventually sets.

***

Shiro wakes up to the sound of rain pattering against the windows. It’s harsh and nearly feels like hail if it wasn’t in the middle of the season. His knees ache.

It takes him a while to move but eventually he sits up and reaches for his phone on the nightstand, only to find it missing. The memories of the night before come flooding, red metal bats and crooked teeth.

“ _Shit_ ,” he groans, ripping the sheets off his sweating body and standing up. The floor is cool despite how hot the room runs. Shiro makes his way back to the bathroom and stares at the now dead phone, sunk into the bottom of his toilet.

“Am I a fucking idiot?”

Shiro fishes it out, reluctantly. Washes his hands a couple of times after and takes it with him into the kitchen. It’s completely damaged, ruining the sixteen contacts he’s collected up until this point. He’s got Matt’s memorized thankfully, his father when he finally figures that situation out, and Keith.

Shiro briefly wonders if Keith called him last night after.

“Was it as good for you as it was for me?” He imagines him asking.

“No,” Shiro says out loud but the fantasy Shiro in his head, who’s somehow turned his horrific experience into a mild sexual fantasy, is pleading _yes_.

Shiro dumps his phone in the trash.

***

Shiro hasn’t seen Keith for a week.

Matt sets the milkshake down in front of Shiro with as much noise as possible, startling him from his train of thought. They’re on their usual date, every Thursday, except Shiro hasn’t really left his place much since that night and everything about the café they’re sitting at is setting him off. Matt looks none too pleased, taking his seat across from him.

“You look like shit.”

“Thanks, I feel like it too.”

Matt takes a huge sip from his shake, eyeing Shiro curiously. “Hanging out with Keith too much?”

The question is annoying. “I haven’t seen him in a week.” That night feels like a fever dream.

“Oh,” Matt says. He sounds surprised. “He’s been asking about you, I figured you guys might have hit a rough patch.”

“There’s no rough patch, I just haven’t seen him.”

“Maybe it’s cause your phone is outta commission. I can tell you where he stays—”

“Last I checked,” Shiro grits out. “You wanted me to stay away from Keith.”

“Yeah, but now you went from okay looking guy to someone who’s three seconds away from driving into the lake with his kids in the backseat.”

“Are you fucking serious?”

“Did you call you dad?”

“Fuck my dad,” Shiro harshly whispers, garnering him some looks from other customers. Matt’s eyebrows slowly climb up his face.

“Don’t you think you’re taking it too far?”

“What do you know?”

“I was teasing about the lake thing. Please don’t tell me _that’s_ what set you off?”

 _No, the murder set me off_. “No, it’s your helicopter parenting that’s setting me off.”

Matt finishes his shake and sets it down between them. Shiro has barely touched his. “Look, I’m just trying to help.”

Shiro knows he is, knows that every bone in Matt’s body was specifically designed for others before himself and it humbles Shiro often when reminded. He exhales, sinking lower into his seat as he tries to collect himself.

“I’m sorry I snapped. I’ve been on edge lately. The programs are just sending out letters now, and I already got rejected by two.”

The small bit of honesty seems to appease Matt, who rewards Shiro with a blinding smile. “Don’t worry about it, buddy, I’m sure the others are taking so long because they’re crafting the most perfect congratulations letters.”

“There’s interviews before those, remember?”

“That’s just a formality. Who wouldn’t love you?”

Shiro smiles, reaching up and pulling his milkshake closer to him. “I suppose you’re right.”

“I’m always right. Now scrub off that Catholic guilt, let’s get wasted tonight.”

***

They do, in fact, get wasted.

Matt is insistent on this Irish pub he adores and Shiro realizes that they have an in with the bartender, which means drinks are on the house. So, they drink, order another round, and drink. Matt opens up that Pidge has been really closed off lately, citing her age and how she “needed her own life.” He talks about how his dad still hasn’t given up the dream of space, despite his age.

Shiro talks about nothing. The Ph.D. programs that have him sitting on his hands, the way not having a phone has really opened his eyes to reading or some other bullshit. By the end of it, the two of them are stumbling outside, vaguely singing on key with the pop tunes playing in the bar.

They wish each other a goodnight and part ways, heading to opposite directions to get home. As Shiro makes his way through the streets, he lets his mind wander. Now that he’s drunk enough not to stop himself, he thinks of Keith. His long black hair that always falls around in a mess at his shoulders, the way some of his eyebrow hairs refuse to follow the grain. The color of his lips in the cold air as he applies lip balm because “ _Lance says I have to.”_

“Miss you,” he mumbles to himself, making his way down the sidewalk. It’s in this drunken haze he spots it. A flash of red that’s unmistakable. Keith stands on the other side of the street. He’s arguing with someone, looking visibly distraught and Shiro can’t even begin to remember why he’s angry at him, let alone _afraid_.

“Keith!” Shiro calls, because he’s drunk and a fool. Keith, despite the city noise, manages to hear him and whips his head around. His hair flows wildly, just as Shiro remembers, and his handsome features are sharp, even in the dim light of the lamppost. When their eyes meet, Shiro’s memories return. “Oh no.”

“Shiro?” Keith calls, ending his conversation with the stranger, thankfully no capital ‘S’, and begins to make his away across the street. Shiro takes a step back. “Shiro!”

Shiro turns on his heel, running down an alleyway and making a sharp right. Or he thinks he’s running because the world is spinning too fast to help him judge and soon, the ground is rushing up to meet him. He can feel his jeans rip around the knee but there’s no time. He pulls himself up and turns to see Keith enter the alley. He looks concerned, worrying at his bottom lip.

“Shiro, we need to talk.”

“No!” Shiro shouts, but the fantasy in Shiro’s mind sings _yes_. “Go away!”

“ _Shiro_.”

Shiro makes another turn outside the alley, his feet barely listening to him as he walks into the street. Keith calls for him once more, but Shiro can’t hear him with all the blood rushing to his ears. Vomit begins to bubble in the back of his throat like a thinly-veiled threat.

“Don’t look at him,” Shiro whispers to himself, trying to catch his breath. “Remember the bat. _Don’t look at him_.”

Except he can’t resist temptation, the way the devil’s tongue licks at his ear so sweetly. He pulls himself up and looks upon Keith’s face. The concern is gone, which is oddly nice, but it’s been replaced by an all-consuming panic. Keith looks terrified and Shiro wants to ask _what’s wrong_ because Keith is a murderer and murderers are afraid of nothing.

Then the car slams into him.

God sits in Heaven and all his angels line up to meet him. In one hand, God holds the world and in another, God holds humanities suffering. He askes the angels which is better to preserve, the world or the suffering. The angels say the world because all life is there. The devil chimes humanity, because the world would not exist without pain. God tells them, in the end, neither is replaceable so if one would perish, so would the other.

Shiro’s arm is crushed between a ton of white-hot metal, screeching a song of infinite despair, and the ever-present brick wall of his apartment building.

He can’t feel it at first, only knows it happened because the back of his jeans are ripped from being dragged and now they’re totally ruined. The Driver hops out of his car, he gets a capital too because Shiro knows something about this is important, and Keith is rushing towards him, red flashes in the corner of his eye.

His name is being called but all Shiro is thinking about his how funny his arm must look, flat as a pancake and all red, and how God held humanities suffering in one hand and the world in the other, but no where in the story is there anything about _love_.

Keith’s hands are cupping his face. His eyes are wild this close, like an animal, and Shiro thinks he’s madly in love. If this is suffering, to have Keith’s attention solely on his, then Hell is a bliss he has yet to tolerate.

Keith is saying his name and the Driver is pacing back and forth. Shiro wants to tell him it’s fine, this happens all the time, there’s no need to panic, but he’s too focused on Keith. Instead, he drunkenly begins crying. Why is he crying?

“It hurts,” Shiro croaks, tears uncontrollably falling. The vomit finally escapes, splashing itself on the front of his shirt and on Keith, but the guy doesn’t seem to mind. He continues petting Shiro’s face and whispering something, over and over, but it’s no prayer Shiro knows.

He only stops crying when the flashing sirens get close enough to blind him.

***

The hospital is white.

Everybody says the opposite of white is black, day and night, but Shiro thinks it’s red.

The monitors are beeping away. Fourteen days, he’s counted. That’s how long Shiro has been in here. And each day, Keith is there beside him, sitting in the only available chair in the room. Matt’s come and gone, Pidge too. Even their dad came to see him.

Not his dad, his dad doesn’t even know Shiro is back yet.

Keith is the opposite of the hospital because when Shiro wills himself enough to glance at him from the corner of his eye, he no longer hears the crack of a bat but instead the pop of metal. Shiro wants to strangle him.

On the fourteenth day, they tell Shiro he can leave. They talk him through the process, signing up for physical therapy, the luxury of a prosthetic. Shiro barely retains the information, too busy refusing to look at what’s left of his arm and Keith’s gaze. At the end of it all, he sits in the passenger seat of a car Keith has on loan.

Fourteen days and neither of them have spoken to each other.

The ride from the hospital is slow, right into rush hour and their car is crammed between many others on the freeway.

“Why are you doing this?” Shiro asks, for the first time since he met Keith in that shitty college party. “I won’t tell anyone.”

“Tell anyone what?”

Shiro imagines what it’s like to hold Keith underwater and sing _The Lord Is My Sheppard_. Instead, he turns his body, with some trouble, to face the window completely. “I fucking hate you.”

“I love you,” Keith blurts out, startling them both as the car jolts to another stop thanks to traffic. Shiro lulls his head to the side, glances at the gloveless hands that wrap tightly around the wheel, at the fluttering eyelashes of Keith Kogane, at the bat sitting innocently in the backseat.

“So, what?” Shiro asks.

“That has to mean something, right?”

“You’re lying.”

“Who wouldn’t love you?”

 _God_ , Shiro’s mind provides. _Mom_.

“When I was thirteen, my mother drove our minivan into Michigan Lake with me strapped in the backseat.”

The car comes to another jolt, this time with no traffic to excuse it.

“So, what?”

Shiro looks back out the window. “My mother loved me too.”

***

Keith helps him back into his home, helps him take a shower because he hates the hospital smell. Guides him into bed like a good partner. Shiro refrains from looking at his arm, hisses at the constant pain and nearly bites Keith’s fingers when he tries to push two pills into his mouth.

“Doctor’s orders, Shiro,” Keith says, holding his jaw. “Don’t be a baby.”

“Love you, baby,” Shiro mocks, relaxing enough for fingers to worm past his lips and push the pills down. As Keith pulls away, he kisses the tips.

Keith lays him down and gently pulls the blankets over him. He brings them up to his chest, enough for Shiro’s arm to be free but not the not-arm.

When he’s comfortable with how Shiro is settled, he gets up. “I won’t come back again, if that’s what you want.”

“What I want is to kill myself.”

“So, you’ve taken up lying too? Isn’t suicide a sin?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Keith narrows his eyes. “It does. It does _to me_.”

“Oh,” Shiro says, his mind a haze of painkillers and bright violet and violence. “Can you come back tomorrow?”

Keith blinks, a slow blooming smile stretching across his face. “Sure thing.”

“Awesome.” Shiro says.

And then Keith kisses him goodnight.

***

It takes months, but Shiro gets better.

There’s a constant thread of hope that sinks into the bottom of his gut every day, that his arm will magically grow back, and he’d be able to pull himself out of bed effortlessly. And every day that hope is crushed when he stumbles forward from propelling himself off the mattress and crashing into the wall.

Keith comes around a lot. He cooks in Shiro’s kitchen, sets up his living room properly. He does the laundry for Shiro and helps him light a smoke on the balcony with his matches. He still leaves every night though, but now, the bat is resting in the living room like it belongs there. Shiro thinks he sees blood in the kitchen sink, permanently fixed there as a reminder.

Matt has stopped coming around, citing work keeping him busy and classes holding him by the balls. Shiro knows its because Keith sits on the balcony around the time he used to be free, smoking a pack and reminding Matt that he’s a cancer you can’t just cut out of someone. So, Matt refuses to look anymore. He’s stopped asking about his dad.

Eventually, Shiro is lighting his own cigarettes and watching sunsets with Keith. He can’t work and has long lost his programming job. Ph.D. letters pile in the mailbox, unopened.

It’s on one of these hazy winter mornings that Keith chirps up. “Want to go for a drive?”

Shiro says sure, because he’s tired. Keith waits for him by the door as he gets dressed, slowly shrugging on his winter coat. When he reaches the door, Keith’s bat is in his hand.

“Did you see the bat signal?” Shiro jokes, because if he doesn’t, everything will fall apart into nothing.

“Most definitely,” Keith plays along.

The two pile into Shiro’s shitty car. He’s driving, because even with a single hand, Shiro is more confident he’ll survive if he’s the one behind the wheel. As they drive, Shiro tries to guess how many Hail Marys he’ll have to do, to ever ask for forgiveness. Keith talks about how he’s sick of Physics and is thinking about going into the Military instead.

They laugh at meaningless jokes and blow smoke into each other’s eyes to see who cries first, until Keith eventually directs him to stop.

“Keep the car running,” he says while opening the door.

“And turn off your headlights,” Shiro mutters, already doing it. Keith shoots him a smile, as if he’s impressed before stepping out.

Takashi Shirogane believes in Hell.

Not the comical one from cartoons, with the devil draped in red and dancing around a room filled with flames. Hell is more intimate and personal and _visceral_. There’s a special one, for every special person, and it’s cherry-picked to cater to one and one alone. Dostoyevsky once said that hell is the suffering of being unable to love, except he’s wrong because Shiro is in hell, his own very special hell, and Shiro knows it’s because he loves entirely too much.

He loves through the gurgling sounds emitting from the outside of his car, loves through the grit of Keith’s teeth, loves through the crack of metal.

And if this is his hell, then Shiro loves it too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am a walking meme  
> ding dong the false god is dead  
> shiro, find a better thing to worship baby

**Author's Note:**

> ayyyy look at him go


End file.
